Sorry to be a little click-baity. I want to talk more about my good buddy with a drawn-out rikon chotei where the spouse won’t quit the marriage, but is alienating the daughter, an American, and preventing my buddy, an American who also ethnically Japanese, from going his own way. The click bait is that I am probably in really good health.

YouTube video by Sora The Troll

I was one of the few bloggers in the early 2010s to routinely post about how Japan denies joint custody so often. My buddy is being put through the ringer, and there's nothing I can do to "give advice" or do what I am trained to do as a US lawyer. As you know, lawyer and CPA. He is anonymous because this is personal.

I finally decided to try and invoke the spirit of my earliest Narita life--the night after I landed and stayed at the Comfort Hotel here in Narita's Hanazakicho. The most futuristic and unique bedding discovery, and rival of the toilet that hissed and made noises. The Maruhachi pillow. The picture is a vertical one, but it's one of my new…

Declawing cats is an inhumane procedure with enduring consequences.

Routine readers, those few of you, know: Aeon feeds us in the inaka (hinterlands) of Japan!!! And what I've been seeing once again this year is that it's BLACK FRIDAY. Except, in America, "Black Friday" is the day after Thanksgiving, when retail sales on that day put retailers "in the black" and on to a strong Christmas buying season. In Japan, though, Black Friday goes for TEN (eleven?) straight days.

Sure, it costs to visit the ATM. But you see it magically spit out a handful of Shibuzawa bank notes, and then, in dollars, it only costs . . . WHAT? $640 something! Remembering the same thing ten years ago, that was a $1,000 visit. And those dollars weren't 30% inflated away like today's are.

I noticed this on my walk through Omotesando tonight. What you're seeing is the part that is the downslope to the gate or "Mon". It is quite a tourist attraction. Something is changing. I think the building that housed the Kanpo sales (Chinese herbal remedies) is being torn down. You see on the Google Maps from 2021. Buildings come and go in Japan.

It's this: the 1K housing. I see this going on all over Narita Town. Once, there was a house. Maybe people lived there recently. But the sense I get is that someone HAD lived there, and now the land is being repurposed. Often, it gets repurposed into studio apartments. This one has sixteen mailboxes. Not sure if they are all used, or if it's just that the boxes come in sets of sixteen.

I use a brace to keep it going good. When I was back stateside last month, I had it checked out. Each doctor visit, I learn something new. What is unusual about it, is that leftward tilt of the metatarsals. I am told this is called "metatarsus adductus". Or "in-toe". It's not really shown in two dimensions, but my pinky-toe side is more close to the ground than the big toe.

I like to visit the parking rooftop of the Aeon Soyora in Narita New Town. If it's a clear night---and that's rare---I can see Mount Fuji from the top of the parking garage. There it is some months ago. It's amazing, because it's about 100 miles away. That's how BIG Fuji is. From my own building's third floor veranda, this is about the same view.

Narita slowly changes. I have noticed this over the last ten, and really twenty, years that I have been associated with this town. On my walk up the Nishiguchi Avenue this week, I noticed that the Cram School "Grows" (or "Glows"---not sure which one!) closed its doors at the Eguchi #2 building. It's sad. At one time, it was vibrant with a number of youngsters filling the building in the evening hours, cram schooling.

A couple hundred miles shy of the Kujikuri coast of Chiba, I reached half-a-million miles with All Nippon Airways. The staff was kind enough to celebrate it with me. (It might be, because I mentioned it! It was also my 102nd flight on ANA, by my count.) When I used to fly into Japan in my first go here (2005 to 2010), I flew mostly on JAL.

I saw this while walking by Jefferson Elementary School, north of where the canal starts. A man on a bicycle was approaching the two gentlemen walking. At some point of the biker's going past, the man on the left decided to shove him. He fell off his bike and on to the grass. I witnessed the whole thing. The pusher said something about "twice", and it wasn't clear.

Hello People! Sorry for the several-day delay for those who read me. This afternoon here in Hawaii, I finished the five-day seminar, and got my 40+ hours credit toward my three CPA licenses and two bar admissions. It is quite a marathon. I fly in from what is called the mainland here, on my way back to my home, which is in Japan.

I get most of my continuing professional education through the Hawaii Tax Institute in recent years. Yeah, I know. Hawaii. Yeah right. Going there for "education". But, yeah, really! I will update you.

I still love you, All Nippon (ANA)! This was a domestic flight. In the legroom seat, I ended up sitting, at times, next to couple. The wife had just had a baby in April. Numbers guy that I am, I found out the baby was born April 16, 2025. That’s one day off of Tax Day in the United States. Usually—but not lately.

A post on the topic of health insurance and health care systems. I live in Japan. Let's say, I live in Japan most of the year. So, I enrolled in the Japanese national health insurance, and pay the premiums. I also live in the United States for part of the year. So I carry an Affordable Care Act policy, the so-called "Obamacare".